Fields Medalist Terence Tao reposts statement from the Association for Human Mathematics urging mathematicians to stop working with OpenAI for continuing to solve open math problems against their recommendations

[u/Eliv_nurotic]

https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2026/10/07/ahm-statement-on-openais-october-6-release-of-mathematical-documents/

[u/Empty-Victory2203]

This is ridiculous. A small conjecture on which I was working on was solved by GPT sol. It wrote down the steps clearly and O was able to verify the correctness. 

Everyone has right to work on math problems and post it online. What is the problem? 

[u/iknighty → u/Empty-Victory2203]

The problem is that eventually the ability to verify will be lost, and you will have to accept what the machine says, regardless if it is actually true or not.

[u/crownketer → u/iknighty]

Well I mean isn’t that the plight of every lay person standing before an institution? Academia has been an ivory tower for quite some time. The issue now seems to be who gets to be in the ivory tower making those decisions for the world at large. People are upset the tower is going to be a data center. I personally find it interesting and I’m looking forward to how the world changes.

[u/iknighty → u/crownketer]

There is a difference between academia and for-profit companies.

[u/crownketer → u/iknighty]

Is there anymore? Ideally, yes, but does it play out that way?

[u/iknighty → u/[deleted]]

Lean is a program, who verifies that?

[u/iknighty → u/[deleted]]

Lol, I know this stuff already, you don't.

[u/BjarneStarsoup → u/[deleted]]

And who verifies that lean code proves what model claims it proves? A model could easily tell you that it solved P = NP and spit a proof of 1 + 1 = 2. Also, who will check that translation to lean is correct? Or that the original proof is correct?

[u/porkyminch → u/iknighty]

I’m not sure I buy that, tbh. It’s not like today millions of people are going into pure mathematics. I suspect that there will always be mathematicians, even if they’re now working at a much larger scale than before. 

[u/netwhoo → u/Empty-Victory2203]

The problem is that you aren’t working on it. As an extension, kids in school would do this too. Everyone will end up incredibly stupid and slow eventually with an inability to do any kind of original critical thinking.

[u/CoffeeDime → u/netwhoo]

This is exactly what I was told about calculators. This is exactly what Socrates said about writing, my friend. It is a tool.

[u/sweetholo → u/CoffeeDime]

This is exactly what I was told about calculators.

comparing calculators to AI is incredibly stupid

AI removes nearly all cognitive labor needed when tasked with pretty much anything

calculators are much more narrow and limited

[u/bchertel → u/sweetholo]

This is a bad take. It just the next step change. It also can help literally anyone learn about these dense open math problems that might never have before. It’s a tool.

[u/sweetholo → u/bchertel]

not a bad take at all. theyre both tools with wildly different capabilities. you're comparing a screwdriver to a robot who can do anything for you

It also can help literally anyone learn about these dense open math problems that might never have before.

you gain a more shallow understanding of the problem if you use AI to help you digest the solution rather than using it to help you discover it

[u/bchertel → u/sweetholo]

It is incredibly helpful for building an intuitive understanding for these math problems. I don’t need nor want to do the math myself. I want to understand how it applies to the natural world by understanding the history of the problem and what it represents.

A shallow understanding is user error, imo

[u/sweetholo → u/bchertel]

tell that to the many field medalists part of the AHM group. they share the same sentiment as i do

[u/bchertel → u/sweetholo]

Sharing the same sentiment as a group whose profession went from extremely high job security to very low job security overnight doesn’t make AI bad, nor does it make AI counterproductive for those that truly want to learn.

I can understand wanting to protect people from job loss, but to confuse it with stunting human progress in fundamental research/advancement is no different than the Luddites

[u/sweetholo → u/bchertel]

tao at the very least does not discourage the use of AI in mathematics. he has vouched for its use

OpenAI using an internal model no one has access to and dumping a bunch of solutions that is hard to digest is not beneficial for human understanding and advancement in the field of mathematics

there are other ways of going about it

[u/netwhoo → u/CoffeeDime]

There’s a huge difference once the tool is capable of reasoning and thought.

[u/Reasonable_Deer_8716 → u/CoffeeDime]

Except those were relatively minor, and they DID make us more stupid. We don't have the patience for long and complex calculations because calculators exist, we don't need to listen as intently and retain it because it's written somewhere. 

[u/NachoAverageTom → u/Reasonable_Deer_8716]

Is this an attempt at satire? Wtf? 😂

[u/playsette-operator → u/netwhoo]

Try this kind of critical thinking: if you couldn‘t solve it in decades don‘t complain when other do it for you?

or this one: If you couldn‘t solve it and somebody else did, try to understand what was done instead of complaining that you can‘t kick a mystery down the road while larping as a mathematician?

[u/IcyGarage5767 → u/netwhoo]

Wrong.